Search This Blog

Tuesday, 23 April 2013

South Met. Gas the 1889 strike part 1

The Gas Workers Union was founded in 1889 - and their first minutes
record that an earlier organisation started two years previously
had collapsed. This attempt at union organisation in east London had lasted for
only two months and some of its activitists were involved in setting up its
more successful sucessor. The same minute book was used to record their
activities. The Gas Workers Union has been described as one of the 'new' unions of 1889 which enshrined principles distinct from those in
more traditional organisations. Pelling says they 'catered very largely
for unskilled and poorly paid workers - new unions tended to have a low
entrance fee and subscriptions and depended not on benefits but on aggressive
strike tactics to win concessions .. they were willing to recruit workers
without distinction of type of employment' . The Union has been described
as having socialist connections and much made of Will Thorne's relationship
with Eleanor Marx. The union was initially based around works to the
east of London and particular the Gas Light and Coke Company's works at
Beckton. The addresses of the first Executive are in east London and Essex. Although Will Thorne is not in the list the
foundation of the Union is described in his biography, which was published
many years later and closely follows the minute books. The first records of
the Union described activities in London and the immediate surrounding
suburbs with delegates attending meetings from works in this area. Activity quickly
spread to other parts of the country and major disputes took place in
provincial cities. This has all been widely
documented and was widely reported at the time in the national press. Organisation was based mainly round the call for the eight hour shift
system - although locally there were variations.
Hobsbawm said that many gas managements were taken by surprise and that the eight hour
day was unknown to than. It would indeed seem that gas managements were
unprepared for industrial action although it is hard to believe that they did
not know about the eight hour day - which had been widely discussed in the
trade press for many years. Managements all over Britain conceded the eight
hour system to their workers. The union had grown
extremely quickly and gas workers throughout the country had
been recruited and organised. Strike action continued throughout the summer and
autumn of 1889 in several provincial works. Once the eight hour day had
been established the Union began to organise around the equally
old and tangled question of Sunday working. Requests for double pay on Sundays
began to be put to managements. Union leadership began to ask for the right
to organise in works and for the right to restrict entry to
the trade by refusing to work with those who were not union members.
The issue of public control in the gas industry was a
very real one. Managements were aware that muncipalisation was an idea put forward by local authorities throughout the country. In London
the newly elected London County Council had already commissioned reports on the
public ownership of gas and water. Such moves were supported by politicians who
often had the generalised support of union leaders. Local politicians sometimes spoke on the
platforms of striking gas workers. George Livesey was concerned with
'partnership' and had already linked ownership to this through the sales of
shares to 'consumers' and he said that control of the industry should be by those involved in it. He
described the Union as an 'outside' body which wanted to get illegitimate
control of the industry and that the Union
was making a demand for a right which it should not have had. Livesey saw
the union subverting his workforce, not as a legitimate grouping of South Met.
workers seeking to control their own working conditions. In Livesey's eyes the
legitimate workers organisation was one set up by
management. It was however Livesey who made the argument on
control of the industry while union activists merely referred to control through
the London County Council. In June 1889 managers at individual London has works were
approached on the subject of the eight hour day by Union representatives. Delegates from the Old Kent Road and Rotherhithe works reported to Gas Workers
Union delegate meetings on their approaches to South Met. At Rotherhithe they had been received favourably by
management but they were told that it was not thought eight hours would be possible at the
moment - because 'men were scarce'. At Old Kent Road things were had been encouraging - they
were received favourably and told they must act in a straightforward manner. Delegates from other companies had sometimes done less well - at Poplar
works they had been 'talked to like a lot of babies in long clothes'. On 19th
June the South Met. Board minuted that a deputation of men had attended the old
offices to discuss petitions concerning the eight hour day and on 26th June a
notice went up at the various works of the company announcing possible changes
in the shift system and asking men at each works to decide among themselves
which system - eight or twelve hours - would be preferred by a majority of
men there. The Company said that working practices would be made as universal
as possible throughout the company although this might mean lost privileges at
some works (the company was still rationalising working practices
between the three amalgamated companies). It was also made a condition that
regular men would be required to give a month's notice.
The socialist paper Justice reported on this discussion at South Met. as
'crowned with success'- and noted that men working the eight hour day
would also receive an unasked for pay rise. Throughout the rest of the summer and early autumn of
1889 the union continued its programme of local meetings - including some
within South Met.'s area. Attention was however focussed on the
concurrent dock strike. In gas works the Union concentrated on recruitment -
Livesey later reported to his Proprietors that during
this time 'a determination was shown to persuade, and if that failed to compel,
every man in the Company's service to join the Union;On 5th September Livesey said that the Union had written to the Company saying that 'in
effect' only Union members would be allowed to work. Following this
some stokers were sacked at Vauxhall and a mass meeting of retort house
workers was held there and, before a meeting could be arranged ,Livesey said,
strike notices were handed in at most of the works. However, - "Mr.
Livesey stated his willingness to recognise the Union and apologised for
some remarks made in a speech of his." Labour Elector published an
agreement signed by both management and Union at South Met. It stated that the Company would
not interfere with Union men by consequence of their membership and that in the
same way the Gas Workers Union would not interfere with non-Union men. This
agreement was hailed as a victory but in its very next issue Labour Elector had
to admit that 'in the excitement of the moment' an important clause had been
omitted from the agreement - this being the clause giving the Union rights
of recruitment and rights to refuse to work with non-union labour. Without it the agreement
was toothless and it is incredible that any negotiating body did not notice
that they had signed an agreement which did not include it. Livesey had appeared to agree to recognise the Union but in
future he would have no more dealings with them and made preparations to
confront them. Despite this hollow victory Will Thorne hailed 'the
re-instatement of the men at Vauxhall as a demonstration of the strength of
the union. On 11 the September the Directors minuted that: 'the above named
Union or its members cannot be recognised and that it will not be allowed to
interfere with the conduct of the company's business also that non-union men
will be preferred and will be protected against intimidation'. They then
began to make preparations for a seige in anticipation of a future strike.
Livesey later reported to the Proprietors "at every station, buildings
available for sleeping accommodation were inspected and arrangements were made
to supplement any deficiency with Humphery's iron buildings and in addition six
steamers were provisionally chartered - a contract was made with
Messrs. McWhirter to provide bedsteads and bedding - advertisements were
printed and the Chairman called upon the Chief Comissioner of Police". Labour
Elector noted carpenters and joiners fitting up beds and a dining room, and
agents being despatched to different parts of the country to procure men.
The Union continued to hold mass meetings and demonstrations. South London
Press reported, among others, a meeting on Peckham Rye with banners from
Rotherhithe and Bankside in support of the dock strike. Meetings in the South Met.'s area were
mostly held on Peckham Rye or in Deptford Broadway - there is little about
meetings in Greenwich or near the giant East Greenwich works. Some meetings
were held in Woolwich but these were to attract workers from the gas works in the Government
owned works in the Arsenal - the two private Woolwich gas works acquired by South
Met. had long since been closed down. In early October the Union began to press
for double time on Sundays and on 4th November representatives of gas company
managements from all over London met Union members for discussions at the Cannon Street Hotel. George Livesey did not attend but his
brother Frank - who was Manager at the Old Kent Road works - went, but is
not reported as having spoken. The meeting proceeded to some measure of
agreement - both sides saw the need for recreation for the workforce and agreed
that technical problems caused difficulties in maintaining a reduced workforce
on a day when demand was peaking. The Union representatives agreed to ask
their membership to consider a compromise for some reduced hours and double pay
in return for a shorter working day and the meeting broke up to re-convene a
week later. Meanwhile - and the exact date is a matter for discussion - Livesey
introduced his profit sharing scheme. He gave, in later years, various dramatic
accounts of this. He had been in Eastbourne, with his wife, and thought to walk
the last stretch back to the works through New Cross. Walking on Pepys Hill, and thinking
what a fine public park it would make, he reached the works and was told that
the union had given them until 4 p.m. for an answer. 'I had not thought
out anything and I cannot explain how or why this thing came to be but in a
quarter of an home on half a sheet of paper the scheme was set out in writing
and when the Board met was submitted to them. The first time the scheme is
mentioned in the Company Minutes is on 6th November and Will Thorne knew all
about it at the re-called Cannon Street Conference on 11th November. Three
years later Livesey told the Royal Commission of Labour that it was introduced
on 30th October - although a Board meeting that day did not minutes anything about it. This discrepancy over the date of the
announcement of the scheme is crucial if we are to determine whether or not
Livesey introduced his scheme with or without the Board's knowledge. As we have
seen Livesey had nourished such plans for many years and had
always been thwarted by the Board. Did he use the impending strike to get his
pet scheme through in a time of crisis? If it is to be argued
that the scheme was introduced only to strike break why should he have brought it in behind the backs of his Board?
R.A. Church
puts forward the standard argument in Profit Sharing and Labour
Relations in England in the Nineteenth Century . He claimed that the scheme was
set up -to forestall a strike for higher wages. This theory is echoed by
Perks in Real Profit Sharing. Higher wages were not
an issue in the strike so this is not an explaination. Outbidding the Union is a
dangerous game and Livesey was a skilled negotiator who would
be aware of the dangers of escalation - he wanted to be rid of the
union, not to bargain with them. It was already being said of him 'we only had to
ask for gold watches and he would have given them'. Clegg, Fox and Thompson are more explicit in a History of British Trade Unions since 1889 . They describe the strike in their chapter called "The Counter-Attack
Begins". This is about employers who answered tough strike action with tough retaliation. The
plans which Livesey made for strikebreaking are outlined and it is said
"Livesey brushed aside attempts at mediation". Although they imply
that the Company was determined to fight the Union whatever the circumstances
or results. The profit sharing scheme is said to be a potential strike breaker - but not why this was.Bristow's
article on Profit Sharing, Socialism and Labour Unrest enlarges on this
argument but again does not attempt to attempt to analyse the situation any further. He quotes Livesey's statement
to the Royal Commission of Labour; 'it was to retain or to obtain the
allegiance of the working man which was fast passing away ... under the
influence of the Gas Workers Union" .
Each historian puts forward a fairly simple view of the profit sharing scheme - they do not explain why Livesey should have wanted to introduce it - and the all important question - why this scheme now? Joseph Melling wrote a very detailed account of South Met. and welfare
benefits but
without reference to Livesey's previous interest in profit sharing schemes. He
thought that the strike was provoked deliberately by Livesey - "Livesey and his fellow directors intended to press
the profit sharing scheme as only one of the whole range of carefully planned
strategies ..... .......... the immediate effect of the proposals as the
Board had foreseen, was to divide the workforce and isolate the
solid body of activists '. He also makes another point; that strike breaking
arrangements were well in hand before the scheme was announced. He says that
once these were completed ''Livesey proposed to
use the scheme to 'conciliate' the men'. This puts both strike and
scheme in a different perspective - the scheme used as a mechanism to divide
the workers and against which some elements must react. "The Gas Workers Union would
have no official status (on the Co-partnership Committee) and when the Company
refused to withdraw the scheme the Union was forced to declare a strike".
This theory of carefully
orchestrated plotting does at least try to answer the central question.
However, it still ignores Livesey's many years of pushing
profit sharing schemes. Would somebody who had spent the past twenty years in
advocating a system use it in order to strike break? The Board had always been against
these ideas of Livesey's. Years later Co-partnership
Journal reported on how he had put a scheme forward at some time in the past
and been told by a Director 'that he had been in favour of the co-operative
principle in his younger days but had altered his opinion' and by another 'that
it would make the Board the fifth wheel of the coach and this would not
do". However that the composition of the Board had changed
since then - Livesey himself was a member. Gradually the older directors were
being changed and replaced with Livesey's chosen supporters. What did
Livesey hope would come out of the scheme? He could not have thought
that it would immediately stop all strike action. He would have known that any
such scheme would only be successful on the long term. Only the agreements could have acted in the
short term. These agreements had to be signed by those workers who were participating in
the profit sharing scheme and men had to sign to say they would
give a month's notice - preventing mass handings in of notices. Livesey himself
said in later years that even this would not stop a determined body of men from
going ahead and leaving work. On 18th November a meeting was held with
delegates from all South Met's works to explain the profit sharing scheme to
those men who had already signed the agreements. At it Livesey said 'to speak
quite plainly the Company intends to have some protection out of it.'
This statement is the most explicit one making it clear to the men that the signing of
the agreements was built into the scheme in order to persuade men not to
strike. The profit sharing bonus conditional on this. 'To quote Melling
Livesey had switched the argument with 'brilliant strategy' from one about pay
and hours to one about profit sharing and bonuses" . In fact the argument
had switched to one about individual liberty, control in the workplace and
ultimately about control of the industry. It was on these lines that the
discussion continued on into the dispute and it was on these issues that the
strike was called. Does this mean that
Livesey deliberately provoked the strike? Livesey told the 'loyal'
workers at the 'interview' - 'the public will think that it is better for us to
have to put up with some inconvemence or a short supply of gas for a few days
than to have the price permanently raised'. So far as the Union had asked
only for what the Company had been prepared to give - eight hours and Sunday
overtime - but they were now trying to control recruitment in the
workplace and this Livesey was not prepared to allow. By bringing up the old
issue of price Livesey was also touching on the question of control. A week
after the scheme had been announced the union said that they would 'enforce
Rule XVI' which concerned union recognition. The company replied that the Union
could not be recognised and their 'own men' would be preferred.
The press began to report increased protest meetings.

References

Gas Workers Union, Minutes 1889 - 1913

H.Pelling. A History of British Trade Unionism. Will Thome. My Lifes Battles

E.J.Hobsbawm. Labouring Men.

South Met. Director's Minutes

Justice

South Met.
Directors Report and Accounts December

Labour Elector

Star

South London Press

Gas Workers Union papers

Co-partnership Journal

R. Perks. Real Profit Sharing.

Hugh Clegg, Fox & Thompson. History of British Trade Unions Since 1889.